How To Deal With Harassment At Work

Women know very little about the men they work with. Sometimes
women just do not understand them. It causes problems that working women
have with their bosses and male colleagues. The most typical of them are
described below.

Men do not take women they work with as equals. As a rule, they have
a very vague idea of the women that they meet at work every day and judge
them by their appearance. Usually, men are nice to those women who save
them from routine work (type, do paper work) or hold a lower position
in a company. Men automatically take leadership upon themselves, and women
seldom compete with them. In the places where the majority of workers
are women, men have nothing against working with them until they remain
leaders and control the situation. However, men feel uncomfortable when
women are more numerous and equal in capacities and potential. Modern
women become more and more competitive in the spheres that were traditionally
male areas. Women consider themselves equal to men, protest against men’s
superiority, and attempt to rise up in salary and in post. It irritates
the men who treat such women as potential rivals and sometimes even as
a direct threat to their well-being. Men try to have as little in common
with such women as possible. As a result, women can become confined inside
their company. They lack information about the inner situation at their
working place, while men are aware of it and share it with each other.
What is more, in such cases women can suffer from aggressive actions from
men. These attacks can be both direct with scandals and public accusations
and indirect, for instance, in the form of gossip, insinuations, and attempts
to drive others into a corner. The most unpleasant gossip is a sexual
one when a certain woman is thought to get a raise or was a success in
some sphere not because she possesses capacities required for this work,
but because of her sexual talents.

Men
resort to this kind of behavior because otherwise they would admit that
their professional level is lower than that of certain women. That is
why if a woman achieves success, she will be most likely become a target
of gossip.

Before reacting to these attacks, make sure that they really aim personally
at you and you did not provoke them yourself. Decide whether there is
any use in a confrontation. Then study your opponent’s personality
and character – it helps you to beat him. If you run into a direct
attack, do not fall to the desire to react in the same way. The best solution
is to turn it into a joke or to ask your opponent for why he is saying
this. By means of a joke or a question you can weaken the strength of
attack without provoking your adversary.

You can also use such a woman’s “weapon” as
tears. For men your tears will mean that this question is really important
for you and they will earnestly try to find the way out. But do not resort
to this trick too much or everybody will think that you cannot control
yourself.

To avoid such aggressive actions in the future, be competent in your
work and make everybody know about your achievements. However, painstaking
work is not the only thing required. Maintain friendly relations with
your colleagues and boss. Stick to the company’s traditions and
customs. For instance, if your colleagues pay a lot of attention to sports,
you should become fond of it as well. To be well informed in the latest
news you should have many-sided opinions. It is also useful to ask men
for help, however, not as a weak woman but as a colleague who needs additional
information about a certain question. On the whole, decide whether you
want to be a leader. If there are few women in your office, you will certainly
be denied additional benefits.

Men’s sexual aggressiveness is a problem many women experience
at work. It can be insinuations and proposals, indecent expressions and
attempts to touch or blackmail in case a woman does not agree to enter
intimate relations, right up to attempts to rape. Such actions can be
expected both from boss and colleagues. The reasons are not only in their
sexual preferences but also in their desire to show power and superiority.

Sometimes women feel shy or they are afraid to disagree with
men and do not want to raise their voice because they don’t want
to look silly. When they lose patience, they can react too emotionally
and even leave the job.

The simplest way to protect yourself is to nip such attempts in the
bud. As soon as it happens for the first time, suggest having no such
talks with you or in your presence any more without going into discussion
on this matter. However, if the attempt to become closer was unobtrusive,
you should react carefully and try not to wound the person’s self-esteem.